Undeclared heavyweights

Wow, these guys were hard to caricature. I'm still worried that my Fred Thompson looks too much like Jack Cafferty on CNN. My Al Gore has come a LONG way- I did a pretty weak one back in January. Gore has my vote, although, between the three of them, I'd most like to have a President Jack Cafferty!

Blood for Oil?

Editorial Cartoon for the May 31, 2007 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader.

Man, this guy burns me! Everyone is angry that the House Dems gave Bush what he wanted on the Iraq Funding bill, but the fact is that part of the pressure they're facing from Republicans is because of this dweeb from Connecticut. If only South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson would get healed-up and head back to DC.

On the technical side. I spent WAY too much time on this cartoon and I'm afraid that I relied on the "warp" tool in PhotoShop too much, instead of my own caricaturing skills. Be that as it may, I kind of like how it turned out. I think it looks like some REAL professional cartoonist somewhere did it, instead of me.

HillBillies

I'm not a huge Hillary fan, but there is a bizarre affectionate place in my heart for 'ol Bill, so I hope you Republican friends appreciate this one- it wasn't easy for me. My charicatures of them crack me up too. Not a bad Bill, eh?

Ronnie Copies

Yipee- an excuse to get to draw 'ol Ronnie! Long may he haunt political cartoonists!

Learn it in a book

Tim Allen would be proud

Johnny Haircut

Proof for my Republican friends that I CAN criticize Dems too- at least when they do things that are absolutely STUPID like Edwards did. As a liberal, it made me very sad because he really was the only one who was talking about poverty. Such are politicians. Vanity of vanities.

Go Gonzo

The Tantrum

This week, I took so dang long to create my cartoon that I've decided to show you step-by-step what the process is like.First, I drew the President as a little kid throwing a tantrum. This is actually my second try. His face was too fat and the mouth just didn't look. His eyes were open too and frankly, he just looked possessed!
Next, I drew the sandbox. Okay, I'll confess, I pretty much traced some piece of clip art, but I made the shovel bigger and I changed the truck into a tank.
Then, I drew the "Mom & Dad," Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Ried. I started with him first and was a little worried that he looked too much like former Defense Secretary Rumsfield. In the end, they remind me a lot of Grant Wood's Farmer & daughter in "American Gothic." Of course, he always did- he's just too square to represent Las Vegas. As you can see, I had a little trouble with Madam Speaker's hair. For one thing, she has it fixed different in different photos. I also had some trouble finishing her body. She's a very lovely woman, but being in her sixties, I didn't want to overdo her femininity. I think I probably did over do the mascara and the smile, but maybe that will make my Republican readers happy. I had meant to give her a forced grin like June Cleaver when she's really lost her patience with the Beaver, instead it's bordering on clownish. This is when I pretty much decided to put the parents in the foreground, so I could cut off most of their bodies.
I love how this turned out. I wanted to show a child's scream and I knew that neither my pen or any computer font would do it. I thought about a Sharpie marker, but I decided that that would be too smooth. So, I went with a charcoal pencil. PERFECT.
Believe me, this is about as good as MY handwriting gets.
Oops! I can't believe I forgot to just draw a baloon around that. Oops! I hate how I never remember how to spell "b-a-l-l-o-o-n."

All the King's Men

They're all "bad-eggs." Whew! I think this whole process took almost two hours and was pieced together from four drawings. Would you believe my inspiration was Easter Eggs? With all that's going on between the U.S. Attorney firings, the Plame/Wilson leak, Libby trial, the Congressional battles over an Iraq exit deadline, and now the saber rattling with Iran, the Nixon-esque Humpty Dumpty/All the Presiden't Men analoy seemed appropriate.

What's up, Chuck?

How about that?! I CAN draw a whole cartoon without using photos off of the internet or computer fonts. Not a bad Hagel charicature either, even if I do say so myself- makes me hope he runs and wins, just because I can actually draw him. Last week, I think my Cheny was lousy and my Scooter Libby looked a little like Al Gore. Of course, by the tim ethis runs it will be 2 and a half week old news, but whatchyagonna do?

Bringing down demagogues

This in no way even begins to relay the anger and frustration that I feel toward this administration. I can only pray that cartoons like this are somewhat prophetic. John Conyers said today that he plans on opening hearings on the Libby vertict and hope to bring to light what Cheney did or ordered done in the Plame outing.

But here I am using photos from the web and computer fonts again. Oh well, someday I'll have some skills.

Travis Bickle would be proud

Two nuts practicing brinkmanship. Only WWIII may be at stake.

I had to take a picture with the digital camera since I was snow bound when I drew this ( the scanner I usually use is at school). Hard since I want to try to draw more and college less. I also want to work on improving my handwriting instead of using computer fonts. This may be a quixotic quest anyway, serious professional cartoonists and editors consider this a dying profession. Guess I just can't let the dream die without a fight.

A little religious humor

Monsters of the Middle East

Sometimes you find images that just illustrate your concept better than you could with a drawing- so why not a collage? Juxtapositioning is as meaningful as drawing, and faster.

True colors?

Some of my Republican friends like to give me a hard time because they think I never draw cartoons that pick on Democrats. Well, here ya are. But now to make up for it, I wrote a firey anti-Bush column that week.

Joe's gaff was an editorial cartoonist's DREAM. It was TOO easy to nail him, regardless of party.

In the interest of self-disclosure; I really like Biden. I don't think he could get elected even if he hadn't put his foot in his mouth this way. As much as I like him, I liked Obama more- even before this incident. Biden is smart as a whip and has tons of experience. President Obama would be smart to bring him on board as a foreign policy adviser. That would give weight to all his talk about healing and "one America" too.

Who pulls the strings?

Protect us, PLEASE

One of my New Year's resolutions was to make the editorial cartoons that I do for the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and the Schleswig Leader lighter. They print darker anyway, so I'm trying to not shade darker than 50% and to use it more sparingly. I think my George W. is getting better, don't you?

I worry that with so many readers over 60, who don't have computers or lots electronics at home, whether the surge protector analogy will even make sense.

I have this goal of being clipped out and hung on peopl'e refrigerators, I'm just afraid that I'll have to do something cute and sweet like Bill Keane's 'Family Circus' for that to happen.

I've gotten several compliments from real right-wingers on my column lately and I just know it's because I haven't been writing about politics.

Does a quack really have no echo?

Running for what? Who?

Happy Thanksgiving

Celebrating the new majority

Licking their chops

Little Smokies

It took a long time in PhotoShop to make those documents look aflame.

Not so inteligent

I took a lot of time learning tricks in Adobe PhotoShop to give Washington the look he has, rolling his eyes with the raised eyebrow. Too bad that I haven't really got my "G.W. Bush 43" down pat yet.

In the shadows

I'm not saying these guys are fascists, but...

I don't know about Nussle anymore, but you can read more about how Steve King feels about immigrants on KingWatch.org

The most wonderful time of the year

Hogan!!!!

¡Hola??! ¡Un qué idiota! ¿Una pared de la frontera? ¡La manera de hacer que los Estados Unidos parecen la Soviet-unio'n con nuestro muy posee la pared de Berlín! ¿Usted sabía que el rey representativo intentó dar contratos a construyó esta pared a la empresa de la construcción de sus propios hijos? ¡Por favor, los votantes de Latino en el 5to districto de Iowa, ensamblan juntos para quitar a este idiota de oficina!

Click here to learn about his scheme to get the United States Government to build a wall between the United States and Mexico -- a scheme which would line Mr. King's pockets with millions of taxpayer dollars.

Spasms

I know that the real prominent feature on the Secretary is the gap in her teeth, but I think she has mean lookin' eyes- so that's what I went with. Here's the original sketch-

Ioweagan Home Companion

Here are a couple of fun ones from 2006 that I don't have exact dates for. Both of these are pretty unique to Iowa.

Above is the proof when I put the whole page together for the newspaper. Below is a "tare-sheet" (the actual published page).Maid-Rite is a local Iowa fast food chain, they actually sell these things. It's an acquired taste. I'm a transplant from out West. Jello-salad grows on ya.

I swear deer seem to reproduce in Iowa faster than rats in New York City. They have fawns faster than motorists can hit them. Needless to say my own fender inspired this cartoon about animal jihadists.

Say it aint so, Joe

Hail Hell to the King!

Our 5th District Congressman is a real dream!

Red Herring

Sort of a pet peeve of mine; emotional wedge issues that distract from genuine policy issues. Grrrr

This was the first cartoon in about a 2 year run for the small stable of newspapers in Western Iowa. First in the Charter Oak-Ute Newspaper and Schleswig Leader, printed by Lyon Publishing. The Lyons sold their three papers to Enterprise Publishing, who's HQ is in Blair NE. Eventually Enterprise folded the NEWSpaper and the Leader into their parent paper, the Mapleton PRESS, but they began running my column & cartoon in the PRESS.